'She's my saviour': Woman pleads for release of relative who chopped off abuser's hand

A Barrackpore woman who was a victim of domestic abuse for 40 years is appealing to the police to release a female relative who chopped off the hand of her abuser to prevent him from killing her on Friday night. The 20-year-old woman is facing charges ranging from committing grievous bodily harm to attempted murder, and is in custody at the Gasparillo police station.

Her 58-year-old relative told the media on Saturday she would have been dead had it not been for the young woman, who had also been abused by the same man.

“If she is reading this, I want to tell her thank you for saving me and that I love her.”

Owing to the sensitive nature of the issue, Sunday Newsday has decided not to use the names of the individuals involved.

The elder woman said many times when she was being beaten and called on the police for help, they failed to arrest or charge the abuser. Instead they just spoke to him.

On the advice of the police, she said, she obtained a restraining order in 2022, to prevent the man, with whom she shared a house, from abusing her.

“Twice since I got the restraining order, he beat me and I called the police, but they never came. Every time you call they never have vehicles to respond.”

She said she was puzzled by the haste with which they swooped down on her home on Friday to arrest her "saviour.”

According to a police report, when the young woman saw the man beating the woman with an iron chair at the back of her home, she shouted at him to stop, but he continued.

She reportedly went into the woman’s house, grabbed a cutlass and ran back outside. She again shouted for him to stop the abuse of the elder woman, who was lying on the ground, bleeding from her head. The man turned to hit the young woman with the chair and she fired several chops, completely severing his left wrist. He also received two chop wounds to his right hand.

He was taken to the San Fernando General Hospital, where he remains warded.

The elder woman was taken to the Princes Town District Health Facility, and returned on Saturday for follow-up treatment for lacerations to her head and eyes, and bruising.

She told Sunday Newsday she and her six daughters were a regular punching bag for her abuser, who is also an alcoholic. She said she has partially lost vision because of the constant pummelling she received from him in that area.

She said she was at home on Friday when he came with some alcohol and offered her and the female relative a drink. She said he was already drunk. The young woman took a drink and left to go to her home, about 75 metres away.

As soon as the young woman left, she said, the man started abusing her, verbally and physically for no reason.

“He picked up an iron chair and started hitting me with it all in my head, back, hip, leg. I started bawling and my female relative heard me and came down the hill to rescue me, or else he would have murdered me.

“He beat me real bad. She did not like how he was beating me and she tried to talk to him, but he was not listening and she get the cutlass and hit him with it.

“Right now I am worried that they would charge her. She is young. This will destroy her future.”